Class ring found in pond after 45 years

NORFOLK, Neb. -- Two brothers canoeing on a pond spotted a shiny object in the shallow water. It turned out to be a high school class ring lost 45 years ago.

Ross Herian, the Madison County assessor, misplaced the gold ring with a maroon stone the summer after he gradated from Norfolk High School.

''When it's lost in a lake ... I figured it was lost, period,'' he said.

But last week, brothers Stephen and Nicholas Schaffer called the school, saying they'd found a ring with the initials ''R.H.''

The school determined only two people with those initials graduated in 1956, and telephoned Herian.

He's now wearing the ring, after having a jewelry store clean it and resize the band. ''It was nice to get it back, and it was nice of these people to go to the trouble of getting it back to me,'' he said.